


Family is what you make of it

by Romiress



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)
Genre: Brief mention of abortion, Brief mention of child prostitution, Everyone is younger than canon, Family Dynamics, Gen, Good Parenting AU, Slade adopts Jason, good dad Slade wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23922901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: When Bruce is approached by a woman to help find her son who's been missing for more than two years, he's expecting the worst.What he finds is something else entirely.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Joseph Wilson, Jason Todd & Dick Grayson, Jason Todd & Slade Wilson
Comments: 35
Kudos: 468





	Family is what you make of it

Bruce hates missing persons cases. In a lot of ways, they feel worse to him then murders. Murders have closure. A family looks at a dead body, they mourn, they move on.

A family looks at a missing person and sees a hole. An empty space waiting to be filled. There's no closure, just the constant _wondering_ at the truth.

Kids are the worst.

Bruce always hated missing kids, but looking down at a devastated parent hurts far more now that Dick's there. It's impossible not to look at every single missing person's report and think _what if that was Dick?_

So he takes them. He takes them, hunts down every single lead he can, and hopes that what he's doing is enough.

The case he's working on is unusual mostly due to the time frame involved. The boy's been missing for two years, the case not so much cold as frozen, and the official missing person's report is hardly more than a single page without any sort of update.

"This is it?" He asks, glancing up to Jim with a raised eyebrow. "There isn't any more?"

A missing six year old should have warranted more concern.

"That's all we've got," Jim says, folding his arms over his chest. "I remember the case, though. Jason Todd was found with his mother's body in their apartment. She'd been dead at least two days, and he was taken to the hospital for assessment. His father was in prison, so social services were trying to locate any next of kin for his mom. Hadn't been there more than a few hours when the nurses reported him missing from his bed."

"Cameras?"

"Checked. Left under his own power. Wandered to another part of the hospital. Police checked the cameras for every entrance and exit and didn't see him leaving."

"Do they not have a lock down procedure for dealing with a missing child?" Bruce hates everything about the case already and he's only just started looking into it.

"In that part of town? Doubtful. Understaffed and underfunded. Consensus seemed to be that he was still in the hospital, probably hiding somewhere, but he never turned up."

Jim pauses, looking Bruce over, and then exhales a deep, exhausted breath.

"I am curious why you're looking into this. Unless we've missed something, there hasn't been any developments on this case since it was first reported."

Bruce doesn't see any harm in telling Jim, so he explains.

"Catherine Todd wasn't Jason's birth mother," he clarifies. "Sheila Haywood reached out to me through a mutual acquaintance of ours to try and locate the boy."

"Why is that name familiar to me?" Jim asks, scratching at his chin. "Probably not for any good reason..."

"She botched an illegal abortion, and her patient died, so she fled the country. She ended up handing Jason off to his father to raise rather than taking him with her."

"So what I'm hearing is that there's probably an outstanding warrant for her." Jim's expression is largely blank. "I'm assuming you aren't going to hand her over."

"She's already left the country, and she's out of your jurisdiction now."

"Came to check on her kid?"

Bruce doesn't bother hiding his scowl. He's not sure how he feels about Haywood, but in the end his feelings about the mother don't matter. What matters is the boy himself.

"Came for unrelated reasons. As far as she was aware, he's been living happily with Willis and Catherine Todd this whole time. Apparently Haywood never bothered to check in on him, because realizing they were both dead and her son was missing was news to her."

The noise Jim makes is pure disgust.

"He won't be going back with her if you find him, that's for sure."

"I wasn't planning on it. _If_ I find him, we'll find other accommodations for him."

"Do you have any leads?"

"This is just the start. I'll keep you up to date if I learn anything."

But he doesn't. There's simply nothing to update Jim on.

He interviews the nurse who was in charge of Jason, but she barely remembers him after two years. He goes to the apartment the boy used to live at, but the place has been heavily renovated, and the new residents don't know anything. After a point, it's not even chasing down leads: it's just taking shots in the dark and hoping something hits.

After two weeks he has to give up the search. There's simply nothing to find, and there are other things that need his attention. The boy who vanished into thin air weighs on him, but he's out of options.

The case comes crashing into his life more than a month later. Dick bursts into his study just after school is out, all excitement and barely controlled energy. He stops short when Bruce scowls at him, straightening up and composing himself before asking his question.

"Can I bring a friend home from school tomorrow?"

Bruce considers his plans and decides that he can make sure the afternoon is clear and the house secure, but he wants a _bit_ more information out of Dick. Normally Dick would say the friends _name,_ and the fact that he hasn't feels... pointed. 

"Which friend is this?"

"Joey," Dick says, and the way he squirms tells Bruce there's something more to it. A pointed look is all it takes to get Dick to confess. "He's the one who can't talk, and some kids were being mean to him, so I invited him over to the manor so they'd be jealous."

Ah. That explains a lot. Bruce wouldn't have known Joey by name, but he remembers Dick mentioning a mute boy in his class.

"I'm not going to lecture you about asking first, because I think you did the right thing," he says, sitting back in his seat. "But usual rules apply."

Joey turns out to be perfectly polite, and seems genuinely excited when Bruce can understand his signs just as well as Dick can. As far as Dick's friends go, Joey's one of the ones that Bruce _likes_ having over, helped in no small part by the fact that he refuses to be lured into any of Dick's stupider ideas (like climbing onto the chandeliers).

He doesn't think anything of it when Dick asks if Joey can bring his brother, but when the boy shows up and is introduced as _Jason,_ something about it strikes him as odd.

Dick's ten, and while he shares a class with Joey, Joey's technically nine. Bruce carefully fishes for Jason's age and eventually learns that he's eight, which lines up perfectly with the missing boy. Bruce isn't stupid enough to outright _ask_ if he was kidnapped, but he mentally files away the answer to every single question.

He invites the boys to dinner, only to have them decline, and he watches carefully out the window as someone comes to pick them up. Their father, in theory: an older man with white hair and an honest to god eye-patch. There's no signs of coercion or fear from the boys, who run up to him excitedly when he stops by the end of the driveway, but Bruce knows better than to discount the possibility based just on that.

He retires to the cave to investigate.

Slade Wilson is listed as Joey and Jason Wilson's only emergency contact. There's no mention of a mother in the school's files, and when he goes digging her finds two birth certificates, both listing Adeline Kane as the mother. Looking her up shows a death certificate dated around a year after Jason's born, but nothing else.

It's not suspicious at all, but Bruce didn't get to where he is in life by not digging to the very bottom of things.

So he digs. And he digs.

What he finds is nothing, and that's the problem: Once he goes past two or three layers of paper trail there simply stops being one. There's no records of Jason's birth with the hospital where he was supposedly born, no mentions of him beyond a very cursory level. It's as if he didn't exist until recently, so Bruce turns his attention to the others.

He finds records of Slade and Joseph Wilson out of state, close to DC. There's even an Adeline Kane, but there's also a Grant Wilson—reported missing years before. Digging shows shockingly little, and there's no explanation or indication for how she died or what happened to the older son.

There is, of course, no record of Jason Wilson.

It's enough for him to look into things, so he puts on his suit and goes to investigate the old fashioned way. The school has the Wilson address on file, which leads him to a nice suburban home in Gotham. The lights are almost all off, with just one—maybe an office?—still lit, and when Bruce carefully peers in he finds the father, Slade Wilson, sitting at his desk working away.

At first the house seems completely normal, but when Bruce carefully investigates he finds what he's looking for: security. The entire house and yard is _loaded_ with it, and if he so much as steps one foot over the line he's going to be detected. He's careful, wary of tipping the man off, and in the end he leaves early rather than risk being detected.

He digs.

Once he gets past the initial profile that's been plastered everywhere, he finds less and less about Slade Wilson. The man is an enigma. Formerly military, discharged for medical reasons, but everything after that is a question mark. He doesn't seem to have a job. He doesn't seem to have friends. He has no connection to anyone but his family, who are almost as mysterious as the man himself.

He watches the house more carefully the second night, but there's very little to see. He catches glimpses of a nighttime routine: Joey sitting at his desk working on his homework. Slade reminding Jason to brush his teeth. The house is small and the boys share a room, and Bruce feels deeply uncomfortable as he watches a man who might very well be a kidnapper read them a story before tucking them in, turning off the lights, and leaving them alone. He doesn't stay up, heading straight to bed right after.

The lights are out not long after.

Bruce dedicates the following day to figuring out where Slade goes during the day, leaving Dick in Alfred's care, but it's an absolute bust. Slade drives the boys to school, drives home, and then spends the whole day in his office, working at his computer.

When he leaves, it's only because it's time to get the boys, and Bruce excuses himself to pick up Dick, unable and unwilling to spend the rest of the day watching when there's nothing to be seen.

Jason doesn't appear to be in any immediate danger, so Bruce spends the next few night focusing on his case backlog. Jim has plenty of things for him to do, but as Bruce moves through the city he becomes increasingly aware of the feeling of being watched.

He's being trailed.

He makes several attempts to shake off his unseen pursuer, but to no end. More than one Bruce glances over his shoulder to see a shadow on a distant rooftop. Whoever is following him is keeping their distance, simply observing him without getting any closer.

For Bruce, so used to being the one _doing_ the observing, it's deeply unsettling.

He circles Gotham over and over, and when he can't lose them he's forced to force a confrontation instead. He baits them into getting closer, waiting until they're just out of sight, and then moves as fast as he can, closing the distance to catch them off guard.

It works... to an extent. With someone else, Bruce is confident things would have gone according to plan, but his pursuer is much, _much_ faster than him.

Deathstroke. Bruce only just catches sight of sight of him, but the moment he does things change. Deathstroke stops trying to run. Instead, he changes his plan as well, adapting on the fly as he shoots towards Bruce, forcing Bruce to retreat as fast as he can.

Deathstroke. Deathstroke, with his one eye. It's not even enough to qualify as circumstantial evidence, but it's enough to be a _hunch,_ and Bruce has only gotten as far as he has by acting on those hunches.

"Wilson."

The word is like a spell. All of a sudden Deathstroke seems to be so much _faster,_ and the space between them vanishes in a blink. It's clear to Bruce that he was only playing around before, and now he's deadly serious.

The pursuit is short and vicious. Mercifully, Deathstroke's sword goes through the wall an inch from Bruce's face rather than going through Bruce's head, but the way the sword punches through a brick wall like it's butter isn't encouraging. Deathstroke's pulled his punches, and only a foot away from Bruce he doesn't hesitate to rub it in.

"Let's hash this out, bats," he says, his voice harsh, "because it'd be an awful shame to have to kill Gotham's hometown hero."

Alright. He supposes the fact that Deathstroke isn't about to murder him is a good start, but he also knows that can change very quickly.

"So let me lay it out for you," Deathstroke continues. "You're lucky. Luckiest mask on the planet, actually. Everyone else has to risk Deathstroke coming into their town and fucking things up, but you? You've got it made. I don't shit where I eat, bats, and the two of us happen to share a table. So lets make this easy: you stay away from me, and I keep on doing what I'm doing. Gotham stays safer, no one gets hurt, and we call it a day."

There's no mention of Jason. It's clear to Bruce that Deathstroke—Wilson—thinks his surveillance of the house was entirely about learning that Deathstroke lived in Gotham.

Which means Bruce has to be very, _very_ careful.

"It isn't that easy."

"But it is," Wilson says, and then in a display of his absolutely ludicrous strength pulls on the sword, causing it to cleave through the brick an inch closer to Bruce with an absolutely horrendous noise. "All you have to do is _not_ get in my way, and the problem's solved."

Bruce has the overpowering impression that he's an eye-blink away from dead, and under his cowl he swallows hard, trying to steel his nerve. It's easier when he thinks of the little boy this is all about.

"You took a child."

Behind the mask, Wilson's expression is an enigma, but even for someone as controlled as he is there are small signs. The way he turns his body ever so slightly, squaring up. The way his breathing goes perfectly even. There are little signs, but the most telling is the way the trip on his sword clenches, ready to simply haul it to the side and take Bruce's head off.

"He doesn't have any place in this."

"He's what this is about," Bruce says. Maybe it's showing his hand too much, but realistically there are two options. If Wilson means the boy ill, he won't care what Bruce thinks anyway. If he doesn't—if he actually cares about Jason's well-being—then the fact that Bruce is doing what he's doing out of concern for Jason rather than a desire to stir up trouble might do him some good.

It does. Wilson's grip on his sword loosens by a fraction of a degree.

"He's happy where he is."

"You took a child from a hospital," Bruce reminds him. "There's more to it then just running off with him."

"Turns out there _is,"_ Wilson says, and there's a dangerous edge to his voice as he leans in, his mask only inches from Bruce's. "Jason is my son. He's staying with me. This isn't up for negotiation."

"If you're confident that he's happy where he is, let me speak to him."

He expects a no. Of course the answer is going to be no. The man in front of him is _Deathstroke,_ and Bruce is asking to speak with his potentially kidnapped son. When the answer doesn't come immediately—apparently he's thinking about it—Bruce allows himself to breathe again.

"He thinks you're a hero," Wilson finally says. "Looks up to _Batman,_ as if you're making the city a better place."

The idea of it makes Bruce's head spin. That _Deathstroke's son_ looks up to him.

"It would be too easy for you to put ideas into his head. So if you're going to meet him, you're going to be _careful._ You're not going to lead with something like _so I hear Deathstroke kidnapped you."_

Bruce considers his words very, _very_ carefully before he speaks again.

"You want me to have this conversation without mentioning who you are." It isn't a question, but he's proven wrong more or less immediately.

"Say what you want, just say it carefully. He knows who I am."

Sure, Dick knows that he's Batman—keeping it a secret from a nosy child would be more or less impossible—but being Batman and being Deathstroke are two _vastly_ different things.

"...When?" Bruce asks, unable to come up with anything more pressing.

"He has school in the morning, so sure as shit not tonight. I'll tell him I've got a surprise for him Friday night, and you can come out then. Make it a meet and greet, like I invited you over because I knew he was a fan."

The whole thing is surreal. The idea that Deathstroke is _so_ confident in what Jason is going to say that he isn't even hesitating to let the boy have some alone time with Batman. He can't possibly know what Bruce is going to say, and it doesn't seem like he knows that Bruce has already met Jason.

"Friday," Bruce says simply. "I'll be waiting outside at dark."

"And I'll be watching from the window."

Deathstroke withdraws, pulling his sword from the wall like it's nothing, and then carefully double checks it to make sure there's no damage before returning it to the scabbard on his back.

"...Stay out of trouble, bats."

Bruce doesn't try and follow him as he goes. He knows better than to push his luck. It's entirely possible that Jason will be coached, but then it's just as possible he was coached on what to say literally years ago. It's the best he can hope for.

But that doesn't stop him from keeping an eye on things. It's not safe for him to watch the Wilson house, but he hears things secondhand through Dick. It's business as usual as school, with nothing strange or unusual that would raise a red flag. Joey is still in class. So, for that matter, is Jason.

The days seem to drag. Friday seems to take forever to arrive, and both Dick and Alfred seem extra-wary. He hasn't filled them in on what's happening—especially not Dick—but they still know how how his moods are.

He leaves before sunset on Friday night. It's entirely possible the whole thing is a trap, and that Deathstroke's going to shoot him in the head the moment he makes his appearance, but Bruce's gut tells him that it isn't, and he won't.

As Deathstroke so eloquently said, he doesn't shit where he eats. He's not going to commit murder in the street in front of his home for an absolute multitude of reasons.

He parks the batmobile a bit away in a secluded spot and heads to the Wilson house on foot. He keeps to the shadows, avoiding any streetlamps, but it's harder to do in such a suburban part of Gotham. The area isn't rich, but it's _good,_ and that makes his job that much harder.

He finds the right spot and waits. He can see the front of the Wilson house, and it's not long after dark when the front door opens. Jason—whether Wilson or Todd—is a skinny boy, and Bruce is trying not to read too much into the fact that he looks nervous as he stands at the end of the Wilson's driveway, squinting out into the dark.

Bruce makes an effort not to startle the boy, but there's no helping it. He startles anyway, jumping nearly a foot in the air when Bruce speaks.

"Oh my god," Jason mumbles under his breath. "You're Batman."

He learned to deal with children long, long ago from James Gordon himself, and he uses those lessons every day. Right then is no different. He doesn't try and lower himself down to Jason's level—eight is old enough to find it patronizing rather than comforting—but keeps a firm distance to avoid towering over him. Jason reminds him so much of Dick standing there, and Bruce tries to put him out of his mind.

He has business to deal with.

"I am," he says. "I wanted to speak to you about your situation, Jason."

Jason goes stiff, his one hand reaching across to grab his other arm. Nervous. Awkward. He doesn't want to have the conversation at all.

"I need you to realize that, right now, you're absolutely safe. No matter what you say or do here, I can promise you that much."

"I'm already safe," Jason says, his tone suddenly firm. His eyebrows knit together, his posture defensive. It's hard not to read it as him being protective of Wilson. "All the bad guys are gone."

Bruce is very, very careful with his words.

"I wanted to ask you about how you came to live with Mr. Wilson," he says, careful with his voice to keep Jason from recognizing it. "You were in the hospital, weren't you?"

"I wasn't sick," Jason protests. "They just didn't know where to put me."

"But you were supposed to stay there, weren't you?"

The stubborn confidence the boy's been trying to project is slowly flaking away, and he swallows hard, doing what he can to keep it up.

"Yeah. But that was because they weren't listening. Mom... mom owed a lot of money, and people were always coming by trying to get her to pay. And some of them... sometimes they'd ask about me, but mom always said no. And I tried to tell them, but they didn't want to listen."

It's an awful situation, and Bruce's heart feels torn in two.

"And Mr. Wilson?"

"Uhm... Joey was in the hospital because he got hurt," Jason says. He doesn't seem like he's lying, and if he _is_ he's a very convincing actor. "I didn't want to stay in the room because it smelled funny, so I went and looked around and then there he was. So I said hi and he... well, he couldn't talk, but I didn't really get it. I was still pretty young. And I stayed there for a while because he seemed upset and alone, and then Mr. Wilson showed up and at first he was concerned because he didn't know who I was, but I explained and eventually he said I could stay. And I was there for a couple hours, and no one came looking, so... well, he asked where I was going and I said I didn't have anyone, and he said if I wanted I could go with him and Joey."

The pieces come together, bit by bit. The police probably looked for Jason while he was with Joey, and god only knows what sort of security measures Wilson had in place. Most likely he looped the footage of Joey's room, making it appear empty to security and throwing anyone else off the trail. There are a million reasons that explain it, and everything more or less makes sense.

"And you said yes," Bruce says, looking down at the boy. Jason nods, his jaw set, and his hands clench into fists.

"I want to stay here," he says. "Joey's my brother and Slade's my dad. They care about me a lot, and if you take me away then... then nothing good's going to happen. I like it here!" Every word makes him more and more upset, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "Please don't make me leave."

Bruce hadn't made a decision before he'd come. There were so many variables, so many options. But now, facing down a young boy who's been through so much and looks on the verge of bawling his eyes out?

There's no question, no matter _what_ Slade Wilson does for a living.

"I'm not going to make you leave," Bruce says with a sigh. "Your dad is taking good care of you. I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright, since he didn't exactly adopt you the usual way."

"He's taking really, really good care of us," Jason insists. "Me _and_ Joey."

"I know, Jason. Seems like he's being a great dad. Why don't you go back inside and send him out so we can talk?"

Jason's maybe a bit too smart for him, because he squints immediately, his tears gone and replaced with skepticism.

"You aren't going to arrest him, are you?"

"I'm not going to arrest him," Bruce sighs, straightening up. "But can you send him out anyway, please?"

Jason gives him one last look before turning away and running back up to the house. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the family is waiting just inside. Bruce is expecting Wilson to come out immediately, but he doesn't, bending down a bit to talk to Jason quietly. Bruce gets the impression he's checking in with him, but it's impossible to say at a distance.

Eventually he does leave the house, walking down to the end of the drive where Bruce waits.

"I'll be keeping an eye on you," Bruce says simply. "If I suspect he's in any danger—"

"He won't be, so you can save it," Wilson says. "I'm making absolutely sure my boys are safe. I learned my lesson about the risks that come with this job."

For a moment, he looks almost solemn, and then the moment passes.

"You can put the case to rest," he adds. "Jason Todd's gone. Jason Wilson's safe at home. Whatever reason you had for looking into him, you can ignore it."

Bruce considers telling him, but almost immediately decides against it. Jason's birth parents don't matter, and Sheila Haywood is already long gone. All it will do is cause more pain.

"I'll close the case," he says, already thinking about what he's going to tell Jim. Something suitably vague, ideally. "I expect you to uphold your end of the bargain."

He can't deny that not having to worry about Deathstroke crashing in on his work is a serious plus, although ethically he has some... _concerns_ over the state of affairs.

"Of course," Wilson says, already getting ready to go.

But not before he gives Bruce a nasty, predatory look and delivers the killing blow.

"Have a nice night, Mr. Wayne."

He's already gone before Bruce can figure out a response, heading up to the house where the two boys wait in the doorway. Bruce is momentarily dumbfounded, trying to figure out how he's supposed to reply, and then realizes it doesn't matter.

Wilson had him from the start. He's always known—probably made the connection with the timing of Jason's visit to Wayne manor—and was simply humoring him.

Even if Bruce isn't quite sure how he feels about letting Deathstroke go free, he knows exactly how he feels about Jason Wilson: relieved he's found someone who cares about him. Reassured that he's happy where he is.

And right then, that's enough for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Will this get a sequel? Potentially. But it was originally written to stand alone? Yep. I've got a bunch of other projects in the works, but I really wanted to get this idea out.


End file.
